Waking up in an unrecognizable America

This morning I’m waking up to new legislation all over the country that endorses prejudice, supports millionaires while further beating down the poor, and gives more power to the powerful.  Days like today make me feel deep despair for the future of our country.  I’m tired of reading about politicians who show disrespect to First Americans, to people of color, to LGBTQs, to the mentally ill, to the poor, to seniors, to Hispanics, to ANYONE who isn’t white, protestant and well heeled.

I want to hear about RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (which is something this country was founded on) as well as “Liberty and JUSTICE for ALL”… and to see the manifestation of that grand statement that “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL”.

I want to see Christ in Christmas manifest in the kindness, and altruism that Christ is documented as presenting in his life.  I want to see the Jewish and Islamic holidays of gratitude and atonement result in a visible public display of gratitude and atonement.

I want to see people CARING for each other, displaying empathy rather than greed, love rather than hatred, gentleness rather than militarization.  I want to see a nation where people can celebrate their differences while having a deep connection to their sameness.

I am deeply ashamed of the direction this nation is going in.  This nation is my home, and my mother’s mother’s mother’s home long before any European set foot on this land, and as much as that’s true, I’m also aware that the nation we live in today is a strongly immigrant nation, and my blood is even more so the blood of immigrants.

I am a product of the American melting pot… an idea that is increasingly disappearing as our nations leaders, church leaders, and corporations, increasingly decide to keep the pot to a single flavor…  something that completely flies in the face of the desires of those first immigrants, fleeing persecution in their own home nations.

I have deep respect for the constitution and it’s amendments, and find it both ironic and horrifying that the very individuals who claim to most honor those documents are the ones ripping them apart.  The most honest thing I’ve ever head from a right winger is that the amendments to the constitution “don’t count” (except for the right to bear arms) because they weren’t part of the original intent of the constitution.

That means that in his mind, and the mind of those like him:

• women (19) and Blacks (15) shouldn’t vote
• you should be part of a state mandated religion (Christianity)
• slavery would be legal (13)

       …to name a few…

I’m no fool. I know that back in those glorious 50s that so many people idolize, racism was rampant, gays were “in the closet”, and if you weren’t a Christian you were a communist.  That’s not the America of our legal documents.

America is a process, growing toward those documents (or at least one would hope)  But we’re going AWAY from them.  We’re becoming everything the first settlers and the residents of those 13 original colonies fled, protested and despised.

This morning I’m watching and reading the news, and thinking, “yes, LET’S restore the constitution. LET’S go back to our nation’s founding values.” but above all, “LET’S take those values outlined in our foundational documents to heart.  Let’s treat each other as equals, with fairness and compassion.  Let’s protect the citizens, yes, even from the corporations, the churches and the state itself.”

Let’s be able to read our founding documents then look at our nation and say “yup, THAT’S the same America.”